B SOUL GUIDE PART 1
Benny Gordini (Larsen Books No.20, p/b126pp, 2003)
     Anyone who owns the multi-cd Rhino set Beg, Scream & Shout: The Big Ol' Box of '60s Soul will recognise the artists in this book. Alas, it's written for some reason only in French! However, there's many great pics and really useful discographies by mid '60s tuff-enough boogaloo right-ons such as King Coleman, Harvey Scales & The Seven Sounds, The 5 Du-Tones, Alvin Cash, Mickey & The Soul Generation et al. If you are at all familiar with any of those mucho obscuro soul CD comps that Crypt Records always carry then this little square book will be a useful visual addition to that digital stash. B/w label shots abound throughout and labels like Toddling Town are given some attention. 
     At just 7 Euros, it's not gonna break the bank and the pics and discographies are well worth having even if frustratingly you can't read the main narrative. A funky little book indeed, and thanks to Phil Suggitt for putting it my way.
www.larsen.asso.fr/
Paul Martin

UGLY THINGS #21
     Our friends at Ugly Things have done it again and produced an even bigger and better effort than ever. For starters there's part one of Mike's huge Misunderstood quest (which is just that, as Mike and Anja travelled all the way to Thailand to interview singer Rick Brown!!). It's a fabulous tale, wonderfully told, with plenty of anecdotes from the members (whose lives have taken entirely different paths since the band's unfortunate demise)… Purchasing the magazine for this chronicle alone is worthwhile. Believe me! But the rest of the magazine is not to be snuffed at. Oh no. Eclectically mixing features, interviews and columns that focus on such disparate bands, performers and genres as Singapore's '60s stars The Quests, PJ Proby's drunken early '80s, Welsh folk troubadour Meic Stevens, the '60s Spanish beat scene, Keith Relf's hairy rockers Armageddon, Canadian garage/psych heroes The Paupers, Jake Holmes and some punky titbits, it's a success from start to finish. On top of a wide array of features there's also the acclaimed and weighty review section. So what more need I say? You don't need to be told that Ugly Things is compulsory reading for any Shindigger do you? It's like our still punky and energetic father!!! We love ya dad!
www.ugly-things.com
Jon 'Mojo' Mills

VINYL JUNKIES: ADVENTURES IN RECORD COLLECTING
Brett Milano (St Martin's Press New York, 2003 p/b, 220pp. isbn: 0-312-30427-7. US import)
     Okay, this is the record collecting book for Bill Bryson fans. Written in the same casual, breezy and yet compulsive manner as Bryson's travelogues, but perhaps with not as much drollery, it's as easy on the mind as a long, cool gin & tonic on a hot day. Boston journo Milano, embarks on a voyage across America to meet record collectors and obsessives and discover the roots of their vinyl desire. To those on the outside, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore or REM's Peter Buck or even Robert Crumb will be reasonably recognisable, and all fess up to their vinyl vastness that eats away at domestic space like ivy up a wall. To those on the inside, who have an eye for indie reissue labels, there's even more interesting insight from Sundazed's Bob Irwin or Parallel World's Paul Major. Then there's the witchfinder general types who never let up the search such as (and the ultimate example I might add) John Tefteller, the consummate pre-war blues shellac 78 collector, who even Robert Crumb thinks are excessive and whose devotions are colourfully related by Milano and in Tefteller's own words.
     The genre's covered range from blues to psychedelia to outsider music (perhaps the most intriguing chapter, in which devotees of industrial records delight in their ownership of albums made for industry conventions such as the one devoted entirely to singing the praises of silicon for instance). For myself, I really, no I REALLY want to know what the psychedelic album that Joe Pesci made under an assumed name in the 1960s was (p.102), I would love to hear this! Themes include the vinyl versus digital debate, favourite record shops, that first moment of epiphany when vinyl "spoke" to you (in " the lure of vinyl"), the ultimate find and a general lightweight but entertaining commentary on the psychology of collecting weaves throughout. It's the sort of book made for long train rides or rainy and otherwise empty afternoons. Easily read in one enjoyable go, you will find yourself chuckling and nodding vigorously in agreement in many places as you start to recognise yourself in some of these people and scenarios! Ultimately it might make you glad about that fact or uneasy if your partner is nagging at you to make more space by getting rid of some of your precious sounds - perish the thought!
www.stmartins.com
Paul Martin